This folder contains the replication materials for the paper "Electoral Competitiveness and Turnout in British Elections,
 1964-2010", to appear in Political Science Research and Methods. 
 These replication materials include:

1) "Replication.R", the master file. It loads all the data sets, computes the descriptive statistics reported in Table 1 and Figure 1, 
    fits the models reported in Tables 2-4 of the text and Tables A.1-A.3 of the Online Appendix using both Markov chain Monte Carlo and
    likelihood-based methods, and generates all the figures included in the paper and Online Appendix. 
    

For the code to work properly you have to install R (64-bit), adjust the path in "Replication.R", and install the following R packages:
    "arm", "ggplot2", "mvtnorm", "lme4", "coda" and "spam".
     The script can take considerable time (several days) to run if no cluster computing facilities are available (which we 
     do not assume available in these replication materials).


2) All the data sets employed in the analysis:
	- "Correlations.csv", used to obain descriptive statistics.
	- "df.imputed 1", "df.imputed 2", "df.imputed 3", "df.imputed 4", "df.imputed 5", "df.imputed.initialcompetition 1", "df.imputed.initialcompetition 2", "df.imputed.initialcompetition 3", "df.imputed.initialcompetition 4" and "df.imputed.initialcompetition 5", which use multiple imputation for missing outcome and covariate values.
	- "completecase.reported", "completecase.validated", "completecase.reported.dutyandefficacy" and "completecase.validated.dutyandefficacy", used for the complete-case analyses.

 

VARIABLE DEFINITION

The names of the variables in these different data files are self-explanatory, and match the names of the variables used in the paper.
 
	1) In the "Correlations.csv" file used to produce Table 1 and Figure 1 of the paper, the relevant variable are:
  		- "National.turnout", the turnout rate in each of the general elections analyzed in the paper;
		- "Log.last.polls", the natural logarithm of the difference in public support for the two leading parties in the Last Polls conducted during the campaign;
		- "Lagged.Seat.Difference", the seat-share gap between the two major parties at election-year t-1, as one of our measures of competitiveness; 
		- "Lagged.Mean.constituency", the difference in vote-shares between the first and second most voted candidates in each constituency in the previous election, averaged
					        across all constituencies;
		- "logrile.benoit", the right-left Manifesto differences between parties, taken from Lowe, Benoit, Mikhaylov and Laver (2012);
		- "Majority.status.poll", the absolute percentage distance of the majority party from receiving 50 percent of the vote; while Franklin (2004) calculates Majority status based on actual vote-shares, 
					  we use information from the last polls before the elections to code this variable in order to avoid assuming that voters can predict election results; 
		- "Time.since.last.election", measured in years;
		- "Electorate", size of the British electorate for each election.



	2) The "df.imputed 1","df.imputed 2",... "df.imputed 5", files include the following variables: 
		- "vote", the self-reported vote;
		- "valid", the validated vote;
		- "new.cohort", a dummy for respondents interviewed in any of the first three general elections for which they were eligible to vote; 
		- "lag_seatmg", the seat-share gap between the two major parties at election-year t-1;
		- "last_polls", the (natural logarithm of the) difference in public support for the two leading parties in the Last Polls conducted during the campaign;
		- "lag_constit", the winning candidate's margin over the runner up at the previous election in each constituency;
		- "logrile", the right-left Manifesto differences between parties, taken from Lowe, Benoit, Mikhaylov and Laver (2012);
		- "young.initiation", an indicator for generations entering the electorate after the lowering of the voting age (from 21 to 18) in 1969; 
		- "fem.franchise", a dummy for women who came of voting age before the introduction of women�s suffrage in 1928;  
		- "log.age", the natural logarithm of respondent�s age; 	
		- "female", a dummy for female respondents;
		- "eduni", taking the value  1 for respondents with university education, 0 otherwise; 
		- "married", a dummy for married respondents;
		- "roccupation.manual", respondent's occupation, with value 1 for manual workers and 0 otherwise;
		- "house.manual", household occupation, taking the value 1 if the household�s head is a manual worker and 0 otherwise; 
		- "Urban", taking the value  1 if the respondent resides in an urban constituency, 0 otherwise; 
		- "rreligion", a dummy for respondents self-identified as Christians; 
		- "church.attendance", taking the value 1 for respondents who attend at least once a week, 0 otherwise; 
		- "unionm", a dummy for union members;
		- "voted.past", with value  1 if the respondent voted in the previous general election, 0 otherwise;
		- "partydf", the perceived party differences between the Conservatives and Labour, coded from the BES;
		- "initial.seat.margin", the average seat margin during the first three elections in which each respondent had the right to vote; 
		- "pstrong", the (strength of) party identification,  with values 4=�very strong�, 3=�fairly strong�, 2 =�not very strong�, 1=�closer to one�, 0=�no identification�; 
		- "duty", coded as 1 for respondents stating that it is every citizen's duty to vote in an election, 0 otherwise;
		- "efficacy", coded as 1 for respondents who disagree or strongly disagree with the statement �People like me have no say in what the government 
			      does�, and 0 otherwise; 
		- "electn", the election year;
		- "constit", the constituency identifier;
		- "cohort.franklin", the coding of cohorts based on Franklin (2004).


	3) Almost all the same variables are included in the the "completecase.reported" and "completecase.validated" files. The exceptions are concerns the religious variables ("rreligion" and "church.attendance"),
	   which were not asked in every survey and were thus excluded to avoid losing elections (see footnote to Table A.1). 

	4) The "df.imputed.initialcompetition.1", ..., "df.imputed.initialcompetition.5" data sets also include the relevant variables listed above. In addition, these files include other measures of the competitive
	   environment prevailing during each respondent�s first three elections: "initial.constituency.margin", "initial.logrile", "initial.partydf", and "initial.poll.margin".
	
	5) Finally, the "completecase.reported.dutyandefficacy" and "completecase.validated.dutyandefficacy" files contain the same variables as "completecase.reported" and "completecase.validated", but add
	   the "efficacy" and "duty" variables.


Additional details regarding the sources and coding for each variable can be found in the Online Appendix accompanying the paper.


AUTHORS' CONTACT INFORMATION:			

Jack Vowles, Professor of Comparative Politics, School of
History, Philosophy, Political Science, and International Relations, Victoria
University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand 
(email: Jack.Vowles@vuw.ac.nz). 

Gabriel Katz, Lecturer in Politics, Department of
Politics, University of Exeter, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter, EX4 4QJ, UK
(email: G.Katz@exeter.ac.uk).

Dan Stevens Professor of Politics, Department of
Politics, University of Exeter, Treliever Road, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE 
(email: D.P.Stevens@exeter.ac.uk).  







